


Just to Break My Own Fall

by Linsky



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Angst, Friends to Lovers, Jonny gets a clue, M/M, Nobody likes Trump, Pining, Trump Tower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 12:55:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10617336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linsky/pseuds/Linsky
Summary: Patrick used to play a game with himself, when he was younger and considerably dumber: see how close he could get to Jonny, for how long, and not do anything to give himself away.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I started this fic right after the 2016 election, for cathartic reasons that are probably obvious. It's based on a rumor that was going around that Patrick and Jonny might be moving into the same building. I don't actually know if the rumor's true (probably some of you can tell me!), but Patrick definitely put his Trump Tower condo on the market in the summer of 2016. Just saying. :D
> 
> Many thanks to Celly1995 for the beta, aohatsu for audiencing, and thundersquall for telling me about the rumor in the first place. As MissMalheur pointed out, this is the first 1988 story I've written that hasn't involved some major AU element. Look at that personal growth!
> 
> ([If you like to tumble](https://linskywords.tumblr.com/))

The phone rings at ass-o’clock in the morning, and Patrick fumbles for it on the nightstand.

“Patty,” Jess says on the other end. “You need to move.”

“What?” Patrick squints around the room, like maybe he needs to duck and cover. But Jess isn’t even here. She’s in Buffalo. No, she’s in…

“Out of Trump Tower,” she says. “You need to move out of Trump Tower,” and what the fuck time is it, anyway?

“Jess,” he says. “It’s the middle of the playoffs.”

“I know,” she says. “This is important. He’s gonna win the nomination.”

Patrick struggles up to a sitting position. He’s feeling every minute of last night’s miserable game against St. Louis. “It’s six-oh-three in the morning.”

“Have you heard some of the things he’s been saying?” Jess says.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Ask me when I’m awake.”

“Pat, come on,” she says, and fuck, she sounds really serious about this. “Have you?”

“Yeah,” he says, even though he hasn’t been paying a lot of attention. But yeah, he’d have to be living in a hole not to have heard about it. “It’s not like I’m…you know I’m not supporting him.”

“That’s why you need to move,” she says. “You don’t want any piece of this. Come on, you have to at least think about it.”

He’s definitely not getting any more sleep this morning. “Um, sure,” he says, rubbing his forehead and wondering if his automatic coffeemaker has started up yet. “I’ll think about it.”

***

“It’s the middle of the playoffs,” Jonny says when Patrick mentions it in the locker room before morning skate.

“I know. That’s what I said.” Patrick leans against Jonny’s stall. He’s been in his gear forever—a side effect of being woken up at dawn.

“Though, I guess you have been talking about moving for a while.”

“Yeah.” He _has_ been talking about it a while—has mentioned it in front of Jonny a couple of times. He just hasn’t done anything about it yet. Waiting for…he’s not even sure what. “I guess I could call a realtor.”

“Yeah. I mean, I did it.”

Patrick rolls his eyes. “Like the whole team doesn’t know that already.” Jonny’s moving _again_ —he’s moved, what, twice? Three times? In the time Patrick’s been in his condo. Patrick doesn’t know how he does it, always up and moving. They have enough instability in their lives as it is. But eight years in one place is a long time.

“Do you know where you’d want to look?” Jonny asks. “What kind of place?”

Patrick tests his skate edge against the floor. “Not really. I mean…yeah, not really.” He’s thought a little bit over the past few years about what he’d want in his next home, but it’s all been bound up in other stuff. Stuff he can’t have, or can’t have while he has hockey.

“Well, don’t think about it too much now. It’s the playoffs.” Jonny gets up, finally in all his gear. “Come on,” he says, like Patrick’s been the one keeping him waiting, and Patrick rolls his eyes again and follows.

***

They fly to St. Louis again that afternoon. It doesn’t feel great, being in another city when they need a win this badly. But morning skate was good, and Patrick feels ready to shake off the last two losses and go into tomorrow’s game.

They’ve just gotten back from team dinner, and the connecting door is open between his hotel room and Jonny’s. Patrick likes that the team still sets it up like that, even if it’s been four years since he and Jonny shared a room for real. When the rules changed, he expected to see a lot less of Jonny than before. And he probably does see him less, but the dynamic is better when he does: they have their own spaces, so when they seek each other out it’s by choice, because they want company. They’re not reduced to stony silences across hotel rooms when they really just need to be alone.

Tonight is one of the nights when they want company. Jonny comes over, and he and Patrick lie on their stomachs across Patrick’s bed and watch game tape on Jonny’s iPad. “Hey,” Jonny says when they’ve finished picking apart Tarasenko’s passing strategy. “Have you thought any more about moving?”

Patrick shoves him a little. “You’re the one who told me to focus on playoffs.”

“I know, just wondering.”

Patrick grimaces. “Jess texted me like three times today.”

Jonny laughs, the traitor, and they have a brief elbow fight. It’s not vindictive, the way it would have been in their first few years. They’re better at safely riling each other now. “So. You’re thinking about it?” Jonny says when they’re done.

Patrick side-eyes him. Jonny’s only this insistent about things when he has some reason to be. “I don’t know.” He pillows his head on his arms. “I mean, Jess is right. I probably don’t want to be in Trump Tower while all this election shit goes down, so if I’m gonna move, it should probably be now, right? It just feels kinda…soon.”

Jonny wrinkles his brow. “You’ve been in that condo forever.”

“I know.” Patrick shifts his weight uncomfortably. “It’s just, when I’ve thought about moving, I’ve always figured I’d be doing it for a reason, you know? Not just getting out of the crazy person’s building, but, like, an actual reason. Moving in with someone. You know.”

“You could move in with Amanda,” Jonny says, and Patrick’s stomach clenches down hard.

“You know that’s not…what she is to me,” he says quietly. He thought that Jonny got this by now—they’ve been over it before—but apparently…

Jonny makes a face. “Sorry. It’s not, um. It’s just hard to remember.”

Patrick turns his head so that he’s looking down at the bedspread, not at Jonny. It’s not like he’s not used to hearing that stuff about him and Amanda. It’s kind of the whole point. But it’s different when it’s Jonny saying it. Jonny’s one of the few people who are supposed to know, and if he doesn’t get it—

Jonny’s fingers brush his arm, light enough to tingle. “Hey, sorry,” he says softly. “I do know. You told me. It’s just, seeing you guys together, it always seems like…”

“She’s one of my best friends,” Patrick says.

“Maybe you shouldn’t move at all yet,” Jonny says, and Patrick’s stomach twists.

“Why are you acting like this is your decision?” he says, more sharply than he means to, and he sees the flash of hurt in Jonny’s eyes.

“I’m not,” Jonny says. “I’m just trying to be a friend. This is what friends do, okay?”

“What, act like they know what’s right for someone else’s life?”

“Hey, you came to me,” Jonny says, pushing himself off the bed like he’s going to leave, and suddenly Patrick really doesn’t want him to go. “You didn’t have to—”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Patrick says. Jonny pauses and looks at him warily. “Let’s just…did you want to watch more tape?”

It takes a second, but Jonny settles back onto the bedspread. “Yeah, okay.”

***

Patrick’s family comes into town the next day for the game. Patrick vetoes dinner beforehand—he needs to keep his concentration up—so they compromise on a late lunch.

He grabs Jonny coming out of practice. “Hey—want to have lunch with the fam?”

Jonny has that tight look around his eyes that means he was up a little too late last night worrying about the game. That could mean he wants to hole up in his room alone, but he surprises Patrick by nodding. “Sure. Should I make a reservation?”

“I could make one,” Patrick says, and then when Jonny just looks at him, “Fine. My mom could make one.”

“I’ll call it in.” Jonny’s already pulling up some restaurant on his phone, probably somewhere with extra kale. “Six people?”

“Yeah, Amanda couldn’t get off work,” Patrick says, and Jonny gives him a weird look while he talks to the restaurant.

“See,” Jonny says a few minutes later, when he’s off the phone, “it’s stuff like that.”

“Huh?”

“Amanda.” Jonny starts walking toward the exit where the bus is waiting, and Patrick follows. “You get confused when I don’t remember, but then you say stuff like…” He waves a hand at Patrick.

“What? She’s one of my closest friends,” Patrick says. “Of course she’d want to come see the game if she could.”

“I have a lot of friends,” Jonny says, “and I wouldn’t assume any of them were flying to St. Louis for a game. Or coming to lunch with my family.”

“It’s different for us.” Patrick shoves his hands in his pockets. “We’re…you know. We’re being something to each other right now.”

“What exactly are you being?” Jonny asks. Patrick slants him a skeptical glance. “I mean,” Jonny says, “what are you guys getting out of this? Besides, like, placating the press or whatever.”

Patrick looks at him for another moment as they keep walking. They’ve talked about this a little, but not in detail. He’s always gotten the sense that Jonny doesn’t want to know, actually, which works out, because Patrick feels weird telling him. But hey, if he’s asking now.

“You know,” he says. “Companionship. A person to have around. Someone who matters.”

“You get that stuff from a lot of people,” Jonny says.

“Yeah, but.” Patrick shrugs. He hates that saying this stuff still makes him squirmy. “It’s different having that one person who matters more, you know? Someone to bring to stuff. Someone who hangs around your place and doesn’t feel like a visitor.”

Jonny’s silent for a minute, and Patrick looks over to see him raising an eyebrow. “What?” Patrick asks.

“Nothing.” Jonny pushes open to the door to go outside. “It’s just, what you’re talking about is what you get from a romantic relationship. You and Amanda basically have what Lindsey and I have.” 

The number of reactions Patrick could have to that—he pushes them all down. “Yeah, but we’d have to be having more sex,” he cracks instead.

Jonny doesn’t laugh, and when Patrick looks up, his ears are red. “What?” Patrick asks again, but they’re surrounded by the other guys at this point, and Jonny just shakes his head and gets on the bus. Patrick shrugs and plops down in the seat next to him to start fiddling with his phone.

***

Jess is merciless during lunch. Patrick should have expected it.

“He’s openly racist,” she says while they’re waiting for their main course. “Like, he’s courting people by appealing to their racism. Is that what you want to be identified with, Patty?”

“Of course it’s not,” Patrick says for maybe the millionth time.

“He wants to build a _wall_ around fucking _Mexico,_ ” Jess says, and both parents tut her language.

“I’m not disagreeing,” Patrick says. He can feel a headache coming on. “I’m just saying…”

“What?” she says, sharp.

“I just can’t decide this right now,” he says. “Just…not this week, okay?”

“I’m moving next year,” Jonny says, and it’s abrupt enough that everyone looks at him. “This new condo community they’re building now on Walton Street.”

“Yeah?” Patrick’s mom says, and Patrick is grateful to both of them right now.

“It’s more private, you know?” Jonny says. “Gated, only two condos per floor. Plus they offer a lot of really great amenities.”

Patrick doesn’t know if everyone is really interested in Jonny’s new condo or if they’re just sick of the awkwardness of Jess’s needling, but either way, it works: they’re off and running, talking about private pools and twenty-four-hour security and what to look for in a private gym complex. Patrick keeps his head down and eats his chicken.

“Thanks,” he says to Jonny later when they’re heading back to their floor of the hotel.

“For what?” Jonny asks.

Patrick rolls his eyes. “You know what. Just thanks.”

Jonny’s eyes track Patrick’s hand where it’s rubbing his temple. “Do you have a headache? I’ll give you something for it.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Patrick says, but he follows Jonny into his room and lets Jonny go through his crazily elaborate bag of over-the-counter meds, muttering about Patrick’s body weight and historical levels of drowsiness. Finally he hands Patrick a couple of pills, then frowns when Patrick goes to swallow them.

“Aren’t you going to ask what they are?” Jonny asks.

“Whatever, man, I trust you,” Patrick says, and Jonny glowers a little but passes Patrick a glass of water.

Patrick hesitates about going back to his room. He gets like this sometimes, around Jonny—doesn’t want to separate, even when it’s just into neighboring rooms for a few hours. But they have to nap. “Hey, wake me up in three hours, okay?” he says to Jonny.

It’s not like he doesn’t have a phone or, like, a bedside clock he could use to set an alarm. But Jonny doesn’t call him on it; he just waves a hand and says, “Sure,” and starts in on his anal-retentive pre-nap routine.

***

Then it’s three hours later, and it’s time for the game.

It’s easy for Patrick to focus on nights like this. It’s like everything in his head narrows down to the game, the rest of the world blurred out by a fuzzy-camera effect. There’s only him, and the ice, and a game to win.

It’s a battle. They get a solid lead, 3-1 going into the third, and then the Blues score two to tie it up before the buzzer.

“We’ve got this,” Jonny says, eerily calm before overtime starts. Then it starts, and it turns out they don’t got this—but neither do the Blues, and the twenty minutes pass with no goal from either side.

They’re all tense on the bench before the second overtime. Patrick’s not ready for this to be over—not ready for their fastest exit since 2012. They’re going to do this. They have to do this.

Panik gets him the puck three minutes into the second overtime and Patrick takes it to the net. He can’t get through the screen of defenders at first; when he finally does, it bounces off Elliot’s pads. Patrick circles around the net, and then he sees it: the puck, lying on the ice just out of Elliot’s reach, and—

It’s in. Straight into the back of the net.

Patrick’s sliding into a celly before his brain has quite caught up to it. He beams as his linemates pile onto him, and then the whole team is on the ice, their cheers ringing in Patrick’s ears.

***

He’s still high on it when he gets back to the hotel. They went out and celebrated, of course, and Patrick hugged his family and all of his teammates about three times each, and now he and Jonny are stumbling back to their rooms, giddy from the win more than the half-a-beer they each allowed themselves.

“Still in it,” Jonny keeps saying, eyes slightly manic, and Patrick hip-checks him into the wall.

The connecting door in their rooms is still open from the afternoon. Patrick listens to Jonny brush his teeth and grins at him in passing when they’re both out of the bathroom.

“You know, you don’t have to be having sex to be in a real relationship,” Jonny says, and Patrick walks into the entertainment unit.

“What the fuck?” he says when he rights himself.

“Are you okay?” Jonny asks.

“Yeah, fucker, I’m fine.” Patrick rubs at the sore spot on his thigh. Nothing that’ll be noticeable among his playoff bruises. “What are you—what?”

Jonny’s hovering in the doorway, looking even more uncomfortable than usual. “Nothing. I was just saying.”

“That…you don’t have to be having sex to be in a real relationship,” Patrick says.

Jonny’s jaw goes out, stubborn. “Well, you don’t.”

Patrick studies him. “Okay, sure, but…what?”

“Like, there are people who don’t want to have sex at all, you know?” Jonny soldiers on, as if this is at all a sane thing to be talking about right now. “Or relationships where that’s just not a part of things. It doesn’t mean you can’t stay together.”

“Amanda and I aren’t together,” Patrick says.

“I know that.” Jonny sounds impatient, like Patrick’s the one being slow here. “I’m just saying.”

“That…I should move in with her even though we’re not in a relationship?”

“No!” Jonny snaps. “I’m not saying that. Just…don’t be so quick to write off relationships without sex as not real. That’s all.”

Patrick looks at him for a long moment. “This is the weirdest conversation we’ve ever had.”

Jonny’s cheeks are flushed. “Is not.”

“Well, no.” They’ve had some pretty weird conversations.

“Right,” Jonny says. He’s not making eye contact. “So, anyway. Goodnight.”

He goes into his room but doesn’t shut the door. Patrick drifts forward into the doorway and watches as he rummages through his suitcase. Or, well, pretends to rummage through his suitcase. Jonny’s meticulous about packing, so Patrick’s skeptical that he’s actually looking for something he can’t find.

“Hey,” Patrick says. “I was gonna throw on a sitcom before bed. You want in?”

Jonny straightens up a little and looks at him. They do this sometimes—not a lot, but maybe once a month. Whenever they’re both feeling like their hotels rooms are too big for just one person. Patrick tries not to be the one to initiate it, generally, but it feels like the right thing tonight.

“Uh, sure,” Jonny says. “Let me change, and I’ll come over.”

***

Their sleepovers come with one rule: Jonny has to wear pajamas. Patrick instituted the rule, back when he thought talking loudly about the opposite of what he wanted would make the things he actually wanted less obvious. In this case, it’s for the best, if only because it makes Jonny grumble hilariously about having to wear clothes.

He grumbles as he comes into the room, tugging at his t-shirt and shorts like they’re restricting his movements as he climbs into Patrick’s bed. Patrick rolls his eyes but grins, because Jonny grumbling has always been weirdly entertaining for him. Plus, grinning at him makes Jonny grumble more, so, bonus.

“Stop smiling, fucker,” Jonny says as he settles onto his side of the bed. “I feel like I’m going to strangle or something.”

“Yeah, because wearing a t-shirt is so foreign to your day-to-day experience.” Patrick’s eyes snag on the line of Jonny’s collarbone as Jonny tugs on the neck of the t-shirt he’s wearing, this soft blue thing that’s familiar to Patrick from days lounging around Jonny’s apartment, watching trash TV and arguing about their nutrition plans. “Hey, that’s not your normal workout clothes, is it?”

“No.” Jonny gets very busy straightening the blanket on his side of the bed.

Patrick feels a slow smile grow across his face. “Did you bring that just in case we did this?”

“Of course not,” Jonny says, but his ears are pink.

Patrick stretches on his stomach on his side of the bed and looks at Jonny across the pillows. He knows he’s smiling dumbly, and Jonny rolls his eyes.

Patrick used to play a game with himself, when he was younger and considerably dumber: see how close he could get to Jonny, for how long, and not do anything to give himself away. It was a terrible game, because it always left him with a jagged separation hangover that took days to fade.

He doesn’t do that kind of thing anymore. But he can feel a hint of it now: a thread of elation, tantalizing giddy hope curling through his stomach and inviting him in.

He pulls himself back from it. That’s the foundation of his friendship with Jonny, right there: his ability to pull back when it starts to slide into feelings he can’t live with. He breathes deep. Searches for calm. Finds the remote.

Jonny will only let them watch half an episode of _Seinfeld,_ because they’re flying home tomorrow and need to be rested. Patrick doesn’t argue. He might have, just for form’s sake—it’s not like Jonny isn’t right—but he likes the quiet that surrounds them right now and doesn’t want to mess with it. They watch dumb ’90s comedy in the polished peace of another identical hotel room, each breathing softly on their own pillow, cocooned in the fatigue of the end of the day.

The darkness feels full after they turn off the lights. Patrick can hear Jonny breathing: a soft whuffling from a foot and a half away. 

It’s not his sleep-breathing. Patrick knows that sound from years of shared hotel rooms. This is different, and it’s enough to keep Patrick just on the edge of sleep, despite the fatigue dragging at him—that, and the little feather-light brushes of the sheets against his skin as Jonny moves.

He can tell Jonny’s going to speak a moment before he does. His breath changes, draws in more sharply, and then he says, “Patrick.”

“Mm,” Patrick says. The hum blends with the hush of darkness around them, with the buzz of the heating unit and the soft sounds of a large building at night.

Jonny moves a little, shuffling against the sheet. “Lindsey and I aren’t sleeping together,” he says, and Patrick’s eyes pop open.

Well, there goes his chance at sleep. “Yeah,” he drawls. “I kind of gathered that.”

He can feel Jonny’s surprise in the shift of the mattress. “What? How did you…”

“Just tonight,” Patrick says. “From the stuff you were saying about relationships.”

“Oh. Right.”

There’s silence for a few moments. Patrick can’t see much: just the dim shape of Jonny lying next to him. “Are you okay with that?”

“Yeah.” Then, after a pause: “It’s not like she’s the one saying no.”

“Oh,” Patrick says, more sharply than he intended.

He wants to ask more—wants to ask a lot of questions all of a sudden—but he can feel the fluttering at the top of his stomach, and it’s trouble. He knows better than to let that spread.

“But you’re still together,” he says finally.

There’s a short silence, in which Patrick loses the battle he’s having not to feel anything about this. Then Jonny says, “You don’t have to be having sex to stay together.”

There are so many things he wants to know. So many questions it’s not fair for him to ask, when his reasons for asking them aren’t what they should be.

He closes his eyes. “You were asking earlier why I’m not together with Amanda.”

“Mm,” Jonny says.

Patrick can feel the hum on his skin across the foot and a half dividing them. “The reason is,” he says, “that I’m not one of those people you were talking about before. I’m not someone who doesn’t want to have sex or doesn’t think it’s that important. I’m not going to start a life with her when that life isn’t going to have the things I want.”

There’s a pause from Jonny. “I thought you weren’t with her because you didn’t love her.”

“Well, no, I do,” Patrick says. “But not like—not like I would need to. If we were going to be together like that.”

There’s some more silence. Patrick breathes in against the raw feeling in his lungs. He wants Jonny to say something again; wants—

But Jonny doesn’t.

It’s a few long minutes later, and Patrick’s finally starting to drift under again when Jonny takes in another quick breath. “I hope you find everything you’re looking for,” he says, quiet.

His voice in the darkness sounds so close. “Yeah,” Patrick whispers, his face screwing up for a moment, and the mantra in his head says, _people you haven’t even met yet._ “Me, too.”

***

It was something Erica said to him, four or five years ago. No—it was definitely four years ago, because it was after that disastrous spring where Jonny almost broke his head and Patrick found out that he himself was broken, too, broken in a different way and badly enough that he came this close to telling Jonny way too much and only saved himself by fucking off for a stupid self-destructive week in Madison.

He spent way too much time crying to his sisters that summer. He cried about a lot of stuff, but mostly it was about Jonny, and even the stuff that wasn’t about Jonny still felt like it was.

Erica was the one who said it, one night when they were embarrassingly drunk on wine coolers and sitting in their parents’ backyard, because Patrick wasn’t allowed to drink outside the house anymore (his rule and everyone else’s). “You know, Pat,” she said, “there are people you haven’t even met yet, and some of them are going to love you more than anything.”

He made a face at it, because he didn’t want to be loved by someone he hadn’t met yet. He wanted to be loved by—well. But some part of him, the part that was tired of all the stupid mistakes he was making, that part latched onto it. It was a way out.

“So when do I get to meet them?” he asked.

She considered. “Probably after hockey,” she said, and Patrick thought she was probably right.

***

Jonny is normal and sleep-grumpy the next morning, and Patrick shoves at his shoulder and ignores the little fluttery part of him that likes having Jonny nearby to wake up. He doesn’t listen to that stuff anymore. It’s never worth it.

His family’s flight leaves before the team’s does, so Patrick gets permission to go with them to the airport. He hugs everyone a lot and modestly accepts their praise of his goal the previous night. (Well, more like manages to extort grudging praise. His sisters know better than to swell his head by now.)

“Follow Jonny’s example,” Jess says when he goes to hug her, and for a second he thinks—but no, she doesn’t know anything about their talk last night. She’s talking about the other thing.

He rolls his eyes. “Jonny doesn’t even live in Trump Tower.”

“You have even more reason to move, then,” she says, and he pretends to facewash her.

He’s bummed to see them go. They’re flying back to Buffalo: the girls have things to do, and they can’t stick around for all of playoffs. They’re hoping to come back for game seven (if the team makes it that far, says the tiny voice in the back of Patrick’s head. He tries not to listen to that voice during playoffs).

He’s still feeling a little fuzzy-weird about Jonny, so he sits in a different section of the plane than he usually would if they were sitting together. Jonny slides in next to him anyway, though. Patrick does an internal calibration and decides he’ll probably be fine. It’s been nine years; he’s not going to break because of a plane ride.

“Did Jess give you a list of realtors yet?” Jonny asks.

Patrick wrinkles his nose. “Basically. She told me I should be more like you.”

He doesn’t even need to look at Jonny’s face to know the smug way he’s grinning. “Well. She has excellent taste.”

Patrick points a warning finger at him. “We’ve talked about the sister thing.”

Jonny raises his hands, protesting innocence. “Hey, I know my place.”

“Good. Just checking.” It’s an old joke of theirs, born back when Patrick didn’t know why the idea of Jonny dating anyone licked through his stomach like danger. Now it’s just meaningless banter.

They spend most of the flight watching game tape. It’s a short trip, and this is what they do best together: analyze their mistakes, point out the little fiddly things wrong with their own play and everyone else’s and figure out how to fix them.

“Breadman needs to watch his periphery more,” Jonny says as they watch one play again in slow motion. “His skating’s better than it was, though.”

“His skating was always good,” Patrick says.

“I know, I know, the kid’s the best thing to ever happen to you,” Jonny says absently, and Patrick snorts. “What?” Jonny asks.

“He’s really not,” Patrick says, digging his elbow into Jonny’s side.

Jonny looks at him for a second, then ducks his head. “Yeah, well,” he says, but Patrick can hear the pleased note in his voice. His arm comes to rest on the armrest, brushes against Patrick’s shoulder, and—

This is a bad one, this time around. It happens. This stuff comes and goes, and Patrick’s only human. Gotta go easy on yourself for your failures: that’s what you learn, rookie year, or else you get too frustrated and flame out. Gotta let your failure roll over you and focus on the next step.

They have the rest of the day off in an attempt to stave off the playoff exhaustion. Patrick’s planning to spend it alone, to give himself some breathing room. He goes for an easy run, soaks his muscles in the tub for a bit, and lies on the couch to ice his bruises.

Lying on the couch is too quiet. It makes it too hard to keep his thoughts from wandering.

_People you haven’t even met yet…_

It’s just—Patrick is so sick of wanting. So sick of this fucked-up thing rearing its head and tripping him up when he’s supposed to be focusing on other stuff. Even just now, lying on the couch, his stomach hurts with it, worse than the shin he’s icing. Just from Jonny being a friend, doing normal teammate stuff, being so close and not nearly close enough.

Sometimes he thinks, if he could just get past it—if he could just carve out the part of him that’s owned by Jonny and throw it away. He’d be able to breathe again. But then he really thinks about it, lets himself imagine what it would be like, and he can’t. He can’t—it’s _Jonny_ , and—

He gets up and heats himself some dinner.

It’s not good, when he lets himself get into his head like this. His pasta is hard to swallow. He curls up around his gut on the couch, flips through some bad TV. It would be better if he had someone here to distract him, and he thinks, Jonny—but that’s wrong. That wouldn’t help.

He lets himself imagine it for a minute, though. His apartment is quiet around him, the TV on mute, and he lies back and closes his eyes and pictures it.

Jonny just a moment away, maybe in the kitchen. Doing dishes in the warm light over the sink. He’d come into the living room and drip wet hands on Patrick and make him yelp. Then he’d bend down and kiss him, soft as anything, and then he’d squeeze in next to Patrick on the couch all warm and close and wrap an arm around him and…

Patrick squinches his eyes shut as tight as they can go. The ache is a sharp one, but familiar. A sore press underneath his rib cage. He knows he can live through it, because he has before. So many times. So many years.

He turns his head against the pillow and imagines something else. Calling a real estate agent, putting this place on the market. Jonny sitting next to him in front of a laptop, scrolling through options, saying, _What kind of place are we looking for?_ The two of them touring places, Jonny’s hand resting on his back. Looking at sunlit rooms and imagining living in them together. Jonny coming up behind Patrick as they look at an extra bedroom. _This is where we can put the crib…_

Patrick rolls off the couch and walks away.

He stands at the big picture window and looks down at the dark city. He’s breathing too hard. His eyes sting a little, a dull hot pain, and he rests his forehead on the glass and closes them again.

There are times when lying to himself is the only way to get through. And then there are times when lying to himself leaves him stuck in the same condo he’s lived in for eight years, waiting for something that’s never going to happen.

***

Jonny blinks when Patrick asks him for the number the next morning. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“You said she was good, right?”

“No, I mean,” Jonny says. “It’s the playoffs.”

Patrick shrugs into his pads. “Yeah, well, maybe I got tired of waiting.”

Jonny has his skate half-laced, fingers not moving as he looks at Patrick. “You shouldn’t rush into anything. Maybe you should wait until—”

“Dude,” Patrick says. “I’m twenty-seven. I’ve lived in the same condo for the last eight years. I’m not going to—” He drops his voice. “I’m not going to find anyone I want to live with anytime soon, and I’m not going to keep waiting for the perfect time to do this. Will you give me the number for your realtor or not?”

Jonny blinks at him for a minute. “Um, yeah. Sure.”

“Thanks.” Patrick watches as Jonny pulls out his phone and texts something. He can hear his own phone buzz in his bag.

There’s a moment of silence. Then: “We should get on the ice,” Jonny says.

“Right.” Patrick gets up and waddles after him on his skates.

No time for waiting anymore. They have a playoff game to prepare for.

***

They win it.

They’re down at the end of the first, but they pull ahead in the second. Then they score two more in the third to get it in the bag, one a powerplay goal by Shawzy that Patrick and Jonny both assist on, the other a sweet empty-netter from Hoss.

When the final buzzer sounds on a 6-3 score, Patrick practically jumps out of his skates, he’s yelling so loud. Doesn’t matter that none of the goals were his. His team, his beautiful team, they all won this game, and he hugs all of them as many times as he can.

“Gotta go out after that one,” he says to Jonny next to him, and Jonny nods fervently.

It’s one of those great nights where alcohol doesn’t even matter. They’ve all been hanging from a cliff by their fingertips for the past two games, fearing the plunge, and they’re high on the miracle of survival. They’re high and they’re laughing and they’re jittery, because the drop could still come two nights from now, but right now they’re flying.

Jonny’s next to Patrick, flushed even though he’s barely drinking anything—none of them are drinking, just shoveling in protein-heavy entrees and chirping each other across the table and being as loud as if they’d had four beers apiece. “Such a sweet assist,” Jonny keeps saying, arm draped across Patrick’s shoulders, and Patrick leans into the warmth and laughs at Seabs making fun of them a few seats down. Shawzy yells loudly about how they only need one more, and everyone hollers back at him and makes him knock on the thick wooden table. The waitress starts avoiding their section.

Patrick’s grinning when he heads to the bathroom halfway through dinner. No particular reason behind it: just the buzz of being in a crowd, the happiness of good people and good food and good hockey. Good life.

He doesn’t notice that Jonny’s behind him until he gets to the bathroom. It’s a one-person room, and Jonny shoulders his way in after Patrick before he can close the door. “Hey,” Patrick protests, even though it’s not like they haven’t peed in front of each other in a million hotel rooms. But Jonny doesn’t let him go over to the toilet: he pushes him towards the wall by the door, strong hands crowding him against the rough-painted surface. Then he’s leaning in and kissing him.

Patrick makes a noise of surprise. Jonny is—Jonny is _kissing_ him. His mouth is hot and firm and Patrick feels it like an electric charge straight to the top of his head. He opens his mouth in a gasp and then, oh—wet, soft, Jonny’s tongue gentle against his, stroking, stealing Patrick’s breath away. It’s melting his bones and remaking his internal organs and holy fuck Patrick is going to die from this.

Jonny makes a little noise, tongue licking into Patrick’s mouth, and suddenly Patrick is _starving._ Starving like he has been for the past nine years, the first five when he didn’t know what was going on and the last four when he’s known about it and held it back, penned behind the strong walls of a dam inside him. Those walls are crumbling now: Jonny’s mouth is taking them apart, dissolving them, and a tiny corner of Patrick’s mind knows this is going to be trouble, but the rest of him can’t care because _finally, finally, finally._

When their mouths finally separate, Jonny takes Patrick’s face in his hands and leans their foreheads together. His chest is heaving against Patrick’s, his breath gusting over Patrick’s mouth, the skin of his face warm and close.

Patrick’s eyelids flutter. His breath scrapes through his throat. He wants to stay in this moment forever.

“What is this?” he asks.

Jonny breathes in, a little sighing sound, like he’s tasting the air they’re sharing. “I wanted to kiss you,” he whispers.

Sweet holy Jesus, Patrick could get drunk on this. He runs his hands down the sides of Jonny’s bodies, those planes and muscles and joints he’s mapped with his eyes and never his hands, and feels the shiver in Jonny’s body and his own. “That’s not fair,” he says. His heart is pounding so loudly he wonders if Jonny can hear it, thrumming against his ribs and the sides of his throat. “You know how I…”

Jonny strokes his nose over Patrick’s cheek, his face so close, like he wants him. “What do I know?”

Patrick presses his face against the side of Jonny’s neck. “You know how I feel about you,” he says to the skin beneath Jonny’s ear.

It feels like the most open he’s ever left himself to Jonny. On the ice with no pads and no stick. Waiting, already aching from the hit.

Jonny’s fingers stroke through his hair, and, “Patrick,” he breathes, and he’s kissing him again.

Sweet kisses, light, the kind Patrick feels in his knees. It’s easy to get lost in the feel of Jonny wanting him. Easy not to think about whether it’s true. It’s been nine years—Patrick wants—he deserves—

Jonny pulls his mouth away with little sips at Patrick’s lips, and then his arms are all the way around Patrick, holding him. Patrick loses himself in the scent of Jonny’s neck.

When he finally lifts his head, Patrick feels drugged. The really good drugs: the ones they give you when you won’t be back on the ice for months at least.

“What about,” he asks, and there’s trouble here, but Jonny’s arms around him are too good for him to care. “What about Lindsey?”

Jonny’s muscles stiffen, just a little. Patrick feels it with a spike of alarm, but he still thinks it might be okay until Jonny says, “I should. Yeah. I should go.”

“No, wait,” Patrick says, but Jonny’s already detangling himself.

“Sorry, I.” Jonny’s eyes are wide. “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking. I…”

He turns away, hand in his hair. Patrick wants to beg—wants to get down on his knees, ask Jonny not to leave, not to do this to him. But he can’t do that.

“I’ll see you out there,” Jonny says, not meeting his eyes, and then the door swings shut behind him and Patrick’s alone.

Patrick’s alone.

What the fuck. What the fuck what the fuck what the—

He’s having trouble breathing, and he feels sort of distant, like everything that happened was surreal. Except that he can still feel it: in his lips, in his gut, in the sharp pain in his chest. Jonny came in here and kissed him, and then left, and Patrick doesn’t know for sure if it’ll happen again except that he’s pretty sure it won’t.

Why now? Why the fuck would Jonny do this now, when—

Patrick pushes himself off the wall. His face in the mirror looks shocky and pale. He pushes his curls back, holds them there above the stark V of his hairline, and shivers with a sense memory of Jonny’s forehead resting there. Jonny nuzzling against his face like he couldn’t help himself. Jonny pulling away like nothing had happened, like he could do that to Patrick and just walk away.

His hands when he pulls them out of his hair are shaking.

Patrick’s going to have to see him. When he goes back out to the table, Jonny’s going to be there. Sitting in his chair, innocent as anything, and there’s nowhere for Patrick to sit but beside him. Inches away, pretending nothing’s wrong.

He can’t—there’s no way he can possibly do that. Jonny should have known that. He should have thought of it.

It’s not just tonight. They have practice tomorrow, another game in two days. And so many more after that: years of games, a half-dozen years at least, identical contracts for an identical number of years when they’ll be playing in the same city, on the same team, maybe even the same line. Living the same life. Patrick can’t get away from him.

Maybe Jonny should have thought of that, before he fucking _kissed_ him.

Patrick’s whole body’s shaking when he comes out of the bathroom. He’s not sure if it’s more anger or all the rest of it: the lingering weakness in his nerves from Jonny’s hands on him, Jonny cradling his head. Just the memory makes him want to curl up in a corner of the restaurant and die. It definitely makes him not want to go back to their table, except that he has to.

He’s not going to tell Jonny off. He can rise above it. He’s just going to grab his jacket, say his goodbyes, and walk out without ever looking—

Except that Jonny’s not there.

Patrick knows it as soon as he comes within sight of the table: there’s a part of him that’s trained by long years of attention to automatically look for Jonny before he looks for anything else, and he’d feel pathetic for it if he weren’t too busy feeling relieved. This means maybe he can make his escape.

“Hey, Kaner, you leaving, too?” Shawzy asks when Patrick grabs his jacket off the back of his chair.

“Too?” Patrick says.

“Yeah, Tazer just came by and said he was heading out.” Shawzy waves at his plate. “Stick around and I’ll fight you for the rest of his steak.”

Patrick looks at the plate, where Jonny abandoned half a New York Strip. He still has a few bites on his own plate, but he can’t imagine forcing anything down right now. “Nah, I’m gonna head out too.”

“Man, you old people are lame,” Shawzy says. Then, “Oh, hey, don’t worry about it—Tazer threw down like a million twenties.”

“Huh?” Patrick stops rifling through his wallet and looks at the piles of cash next to Jonny’s place. Well. At least Jonny bought him dinner. “Okay, then. I’ll, uh, see you at practice tomorrow.”

It doesn’t make him less mad at Jonny, not really. Jonny’s absolutely the kind of guy who would pay for everyone’s meals as the easiest way to get out of an awkward situation, and Patrick should not be thinking of that with fondness. And fuck, Jonny’s going to be outside waiting for a cab, isn’t he?

He isn’t, though. Patrick doesn’t know if his cab already came or what, but he’s alone on the curb as he waits for his Uber. He tries to tell himself it’s a relief and nothing else.

Patrick totally fails at making conversation with the Uber driver, which sucks because he’s a fan—of course he’s a fan; with Patrick’s luck tonight, how could he not be? The guy is trying to talk to him about their final game against the Blues, and that’s one of the few topics on earth that should be able to keep Patrick’s attention, but all he can think about is how Jonny’s hands felt framing his face. His skin still feels hot where Jonny’s palms pressed against it. He wonders if his lips are swollen.

“Good luck to you guys,” the driver says when he drops Patrick off, and for a crazy second Patrick thinks he means him and Jonny.

He stumbles upstairs and thinks about—thinks about a lot of things: about calling Jonny and telling him off. About calling his sisters, or Amanda, or Sharpy, and telling them some of the things that are fighting to get out of his chest. Like how it’s been _nine years_ that Patrick’s been good about this. Nine years when he wanted to kiss Jonny, and he never did, how he had it under control and was holding on and then stupid fucking Jonny had to go and fuck it up with the most amazing perfect kiss that—

Patrick sags against his bathroom wall at the memory of that kiss.

It was exactly what he wanted. It was so exactly right that it sliced through years of defenses, all the times he told himself not to think about it, every measure he’d ever taken to protect himself from the longing that hid in the corners of his heart.

Jonny. He wants Jonny he wants Jonny he wants Jonny he wants—

Patrick slides down the wall and buries his face in his knees.

***

The next morning is not fun.

It’s not fair, he thinks as he drags his eyelids open to the sound of the alarm and the pounding of a sick headache, that he gets a shitty morning after and they didn’t even have sex. If he’s going to feel this bad, he should at least have gotten an orgasm out of it.

Not that he would have survived sex with Jonny and having Jonny walk out. That might actually have killed him.

There are so many things he didn’t get to do with Jonny. Things that he always knew that he’d never get to do, except that now that that door is closed, he can tell that he was hoping for them a little bit anyway. He didn’t get to press up against his naked skin. He didn’t get to run his fingers over those abs, those pecs, touch those little nubs that show through his t-shirts. He didn’t get to bite down on Jonny’s neck and see if it would make him groan the way Patrick thinks it would. He didn’t get to do any of those things, and he got destroyed anyway.

He yanks a drawer out of his dresser a little harder than he needs to.

He has to see Jonny in a couple of hours. They have practice. Jonny should probably have thought of that before doing that to him. He could have at least picked a better time—after the season was over, or when Patrick wasn’t going to see him for days, or, you know, never. Never would have been good, too.

Fuck Jonny, anyway.

Patrick might be stomping a little as he goes to the kitchen. It’s good: anger is so much easier to deal with than any of the other shit in his head. He’s going to go to the kitchen and eat breakfast—toast with peanut butter and jam, because fuck Jonny and his stupid nutrition rules—and then—

There’s a knock on the door.

Patrick knows, he _knows_ it’s Jonny. Not that he could actually know—but his stomach clenches hard, and adrenaline starts pricking his skin.

This is—good. It’ll be good. It means Patrick will have a chance to tell him off now. Better here than in the locker room in front of the team. There are things Jonny needs to hear. Who does Jonny think he is, fucking with Patrick’s head like that? Hell, it wouldn’t be out of line if Patrick punched him. Maybe he will.

He opens the door, and there’s Jonny on the other side, looking like everything Patrick’s wanted for the past nine years.

Fuck. Patrick bites down on his lip, hard. He was right last night: all the walls are gone. All the emotion he’s worked at keeping back over the years, tamping down so that it doesn’t make him miserable every moment of his life, it all rises to the surface immediately. Just at the sight of Jonny’s face.

Jonny looks almost startled to see him. Which he shouldn’t be, because he’s not the one who was burst in upon before he’d even eaten breakfast. He’s just standing there, looking unfairly good in a blue polo, his hair damp with washing and his mouth everything Patrick wants to touch. “I need to talk to you,” he says. He shuffles the stuff he has in his arms, papers with a familiar logo—

“What the fuck,” Patrick says. “Are those your condo papers?”

Jonny looks down, like he hadn’t realized he was holding a pile of promotional pamphlets. He holds them tighter against his chest. “Can I come in?”

Patrick could do lots of things, at this point. But instead he steps back and lets Jonny come through the door.

He shivers a little as Jonny walks by him, even though he doesn’t come close enough to touch. It’s not like Jonny isn’t over here all the time, but it feels totally different now, having Jonny in his space. Toeing off his shoes, walking into the kitchen on socked feet. Putting his papers on the table like it’s his to use. Like he didn’t fucking ruin everything last night with—

“Do you have any coffee?” Jonny asks.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Patrick asks.

“Um.” Jonny shifts a little, like maybe Patrick glaring at him like this is awkward. How terrible for him. “I just wanted to, um.” He shuffles the papers and spreads a few out. “Look, I wanted to show you. It’s a really nice place, and—”

“Are—are you talking about your fucking _condo_ right now?” Patrick asks, his voice rising precipitously.

“Yes?” Jonny’s eyes are wide, a little panicked. “I know you haven’t seen it yet, but look—it’s a really nice building, great security, two condos per floor—”

“Oh my fucking god,” Patrick explodes. “Yes, I know. Your condo is heaven on earth. It has a twenty-four-hour gym and free unicorn delivery and hot and cold running puppies for every resident, and I’m sure you and Lindsey will be very happy living your sexless lives there, so will you please get out of my house before I—”

“I broke up with Lindsey last night,” Jonny says.

Patrick stops and blinks at him. “You—what?”

“Patrick,” Jonny says. “My building has two condos per floor.”

Patrick gapes at him some more. “What…Jonny. What are you even talking about right now?”

“Don’t find some other place,” Jonny says, taking a step closer to Patrick. His words are coming out quickly now. “Don’t—I don’t know, don’t live in some other condo for eight years, or move in with Amanda, or anything else. Move in with me. I want you to move in with me.”

Patrick feels vaguely like Jonny’s hit him over the head. “But…why?” he manages to say.

“Because…” Jonny bites his lip, looks off to the side. “I’m not one of those people, either,” he says. “The ones who want to live without sex, or without love, or any of that stuff. I want…I want someone to live in my space and someone who matters more and someone I kiss because I want to, not because I feel like I’m supposed to. And—” He looks at Patrick, his eyes dark and desperate. “And I want that someone to be you.”

Patrick can barely breathe. “Jonny,” he says.

“I don’t know if you want…” Jonny says.

“Are you fucking kidding, of course I do,” Patrick says, and he launches himself at Jonny.

Jonny’s pretty sturdy, so he takes the hit, and then Patrick has his face buried in the fresh-smelling skin of Jonny’s neck and is holding onto Jonny tight. “Fuck, I cannot _believe_ ,” Patrick says, laughing a little, and Jonny’s face is in his hair and his arms are tight around Patrick’s back. Patrick punches him in the arm, only sort of hard. “You are such a _jerk_.”

“What?” Jonny says, sounding dazed. He’s pressing his lips to Patrick’s temple, the side of his face.

Patrick tilts his head up. “You fucking walked out, you douche.”

Jonny looks stricken. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know—I couldn’t—” And then Patrick’s had enough of this, so he closes the distance in a kiss.

It’s a million times better now that Patrick knows this is something he gets to keep. He still doesn’t quite believe it—it seems way too good to be true—but Jonny’s mouth on his makes his toes curl, and that’s pretty convincing. He leans against Jonny and feels the goodness of it like warmth all over his body, like the hot summer sun after a long, long winter, and—

“We can’t,” Jonny says, breathless. “Practice.”

“Fuck that,” Patrick says, because he just got Jonny into his arms and he’s not about to give that up. Like, maybe ever.

“We could—oh, fuck,” Jonny says, and he pushes Patrick against the wall and gets his mouth on his neck.

“After,” he whispers in Patrick’s ear, while Patrick is busy melting against the wall. “After, I’m going to get you spread out on a bed, and I’m going to take you apart.”

“Yeah,” Patrick says dazedly. Jonny’s cock is hard against his, and he doesn’t think he has any motor control left.

“And then,” Jonny says, tonguing the inside of his ear, “and then…”

“Yeah?”

Jonny’s lips trail down Patrick’s jaw, a bright line of sensation. “Then we can go furniture shopping for your new condo,” he murmurs against Patrick’s lips.

Patrick gasps a laugh and tightens his arms around Jonny’s neck. “Maybe after the playoffs,” he says.


End file.
